All Recommendations
The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat
A group of people are standing along the platform of a railway station in La Ciotat, waiting for a train. One is seen coming, at some distance, and eventually stops at the platform. Doors of the railway-cars open and attendants help passengers off and on. Popular legend has it that, when this film was shown, the first-night audience fled the café in terror, fearing being run over by the "approaching" train. This legend has since been identified as promotional embellishment, though there is evidence to suggest that people were astounded at the capabilities of the Lumières' cinématographe.
The Docks of New York
A blue-collar worker on New York's depressed waterfront finds his life changed after he saves a woman attempting suicide.
The Sprinkler Sprinkled
A gardener is watering his flowers, when a mischievous boy sneaks up behind his back, and puts a foot on the water hose. The gardener is surprised and looks into the nozzle to find out why the water has stopped coming. The boy then lifts his foot from the hose, whereby the water squirts up in the gardener's face. The gardener chases the boy, grips his ear and slaps him in his buttocks. The boy then runs away and the gardener continues his watering. Three separate versions of this film exist, this is the original, filmed by Louis Lumière.
Baby's Meal
A father, a mother and a baby are sitting at a table, on a patio outside. Dad is feeding Baby her lunch, while Mum is serving tea.
Annabelle Serpentine Dance
In a long, diaphanous skirt, held out by her hands with arms extended, Broadway dancer Annabelle Moore performs. Her dance emphasizes the movement of the flowing cloth. She moves to her right and left across an unadorned stage. Many of the prints were distributed in hand-tinted color.
Oktapodi
Two Octopi fight for their lives with a stubborn restaurant cook in a comical escape through the streets of a small Greek village.
Horse Trick Riders
In the background is a house. In the foreground, a groom holds the reins of a sleek black horse that stands in profile. A tall man, dressed in a black uniform, demonstrates how to mount the horse then encourages and tries to assist a man in white. The man in white keeps falling, and soon it's apparent that he's an putting on a show. His pratfalls become more elaborate and stylish. The horse stands patient. The little groom laughs to see such sport. And finally, the man in white finds a comic accommodation. The story, though brief, has a beginning, middle, and end.
Playing Cards
Three friends are playing cards in a beer garden. One of them orders drinks. The waitress comes back with a bottle of wine and three glasses on a tray. The man serves his friends. They clink glasses and drink. Then the man asks for a newspaper. He reads a funny story in it and the three friends burst out laughing while the waitress merely smiles.
Piggy
Sara is an overweight teen who lives in the shadow of a clique of cool girls holidaying in her village. Not even her childhood friend, Claudia, defends her when she's bullied at the local pool in front of an unknown man. Her clothes are stolen and Sara must get home wearing nothing but her bikini.
The Photographical Congress Arrives in Lyon
Down the gangway, photographers leave the deck of a riverboat in large numbers.
A Nightmare
A man has a fantastical nightmare involving, among other things, a grinning malevolent moon.
The X-Ray Fiend
A romantic couple are transformed into skeletons via X-Rays. The film combines two very recent innovations: Wilhelm Roentgen's discovery of X-rays in 1895, and Georges Méliès' accidental realisation of the special-effects potential of the jump-cut in 1896.
The Countryman and the Cinematograph
A satire on the way that audiences unaccustomed to the cinema didn't know how to react to the moving images on a screen - in this film, an unsophisticated (and stereotypical) country yokel is alternately baffled and terrified, in the latter case by the apparent approach of a steam train.
Transformation by Hats
Félicien Trewey uses a basic prop to create comical hats and their accompanying caricatures.
Malice in Wonderland
A jet-propelled white rabbit flies through the vulva of a supine woman into a wonderland where people and objects turn inside out, changing shapes and identities at warp speed. Events roughly follow Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland." The caterpillar and the queen make appearances, as does Alice. Images and symbols are often sexual. At the end, Alice asks, "Who has had such a curious dream?"
Zygote
The two remaining crew members of a mining operation in the Arctic Circle fight to survive against an alien creature.
Roundhay Garden Scene
The earliest surviving celluloid film, and believed to be the second moving picture ever created, was shot by Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince using the LPCCP Type-1 MkII single-lens camera. It was taken in the garden of Oakwood Grange, the Whitley family house in Roundhay, Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire (UK), possibly on 14 October 1888. The film shows Adolphe Le Prince (Le Prince's son), Mrs. Sarah Whitley (Le Prince's mother-in-law), Joseph Whitley, and Miss Harriet Hartley walking around in circles, laughing to themselves, and staying within the area framed by the camera. The Roundhay Garden Scene was recorded at 12 frames per second and runs for 2.11 seconds.
Gentleman's Agreement
A magazine writer poses as a Jew to expose anti-Semitism.
The Lion Woman
Eva Arctander is born with hypertrichosis, meaning that she is covered from head to toe with fine blonde hair. Her father is so ashamed of her that he hides her away from the world in their apartment. However, Eva’s nanny fights for her right to be treated like everyone else.
Cartel Land
In the Mexican state of Michoacán, Dr. Jose Mireles, a small-town physician known as "El Doctor," shepherds a citizen uprising against the Knights Templar, the violent drug cartel that has wreaked havoc on the region for years. Meanwhile, in Arizona's Altar Valley—a narrow, 52-mile-long desert corridor known as Cocaine Alley—Tim "Nailer" Foley, an American veteran, heads a small paramilitary group called Arizona Border Recon, whose goal is to halt Mexico’s drug wars from seeping across our border.